


Holy Crap-verse

by beetle



Category: Angel: the Series, The Bible
Genre: M/M, post-nfa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 03:57:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/781492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written both for the slashthedrabble prompt 186, “fail."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Modality and Sign Types

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the Joss-verse, nor do I own the Bible.  
> Notes: Set Post-NFA by almost four years, canon compliant. Connor's a TA, in his first year of grad school. Humor and light angst.

  
“I fail. At life,” Connor mutters as the ancient vending machine eats his four quarters  _without_ spitting out Fresca-flavored goodness.  
  
  
He unshoulders his backpack to hunt up more change.  
  
  
“Was that your last buck?”  
  
  
Startled, Connor looks around distractedly.  
  
  
An undergrad brushes salt-and-pepper hair out of his face and gazes at Connor sedately. Connor can't keep their names straight, yet, just does what all the other TAs do. Generic labels. There're currently only four students in Professor Durkheim's Basic Semiotics class interesting enough to warrant labeling: Smells Like Teen Spirit, Looks Like A Hippie, Sex Kitten, and Is Probably A Serial Killer.  
  
  
“Uh. I'm sorry?”  
  
  
“Change.” The student grins--a flash of teeth that could be whiter, in a weathered, sun-baked face with kind eyes. Like a Mastiff. “Do you need more change to feed the dread beast, or are you good--?”   
  
  
“Oh. Yeah. No. I'm fine.” Connor's just about wrangled a solid handful of grubby coins from the smallest compartment of his backpack, most of which are . . . pennies and nickels. Not a quarter in sight.  
  
  
 _Stipend_ , Connor's learned, is from the Latin  _stipere_ , meaning  _less than minimum wage_.  
  
  
“That's cool,” The Dude says easily. Connor's gonna have to run it by the other TAs, but he's sure the label'll stick. Physically there's no resemblance--this guy's short and wiry, not tall and doughy. But he's got a beard, and is calm, in a half-baked sort of way that makes Connor remember the highschool years he never had. . . .  
  
  
“Hey--Connor, right? I'm J.C.--I was about to go  _Luciani_ 's for some chow. You . . . wanna join me?” The Dude-- _J.C._  adds, shoving his hands into the pockets of worn jeans. His hideous sweater is even rattier than Connor's, but probably cleaner.  
  
  
“Oh. I'm not--”  _hungry_ , Connor means to say, but his stomach picks that moment to makes itself heard. So he swerves at the last second. “--uh, supposed to fraternize. With students.”  
  
  
He doesn't know if that's true or not, but it sounds official, and anyway, he's got a thesis to work on, and little money with which to buy food. It's ramen and cat-food grade tuna till next Tuesday.  
  
  
“Who's fraternizing?” J.C.'s eyebrows--practically a Frida Kahlo-esque unibrow--lift in amusement. “I'm proposing all the stromboli and garlic knots you can eat. In return, I get to pick your brain about modality, and sign types for an hour. How's that sound?”  
  
  
Connor chews his bottom lip.  
  
  
 _Re_ shoulders the backpack.   
  
  
Realizes he's still holding a palmful of corroding, dirty metal, and impatiently shoves it in his pocket.   
  
  
Rocks backward and forward, heel and toe . . . listening to the pathetic jingle of his net worth, and the stultifying silence of his lonely, unfraternized existence.  
  
  
“Sounds like we have a deal,” he says impulsively. J.C's Mastiff-eyes light up. Just then, the dread beast gives a grinding gurgle.  
  
  
Connor's Fresca shoots out.  
  
  
Hits him in the knee.  _Hard._  
  
  
“Um. Ow,” he says lamely, belatedly. J.C. grins.


	2. 'Tis The Season

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for slashthedrabble prompt #186, “fail.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Almost four years post-NFA. Connor's a TA in grad-school, and he tutors on the side.

  
  
"Can I ask you something?"  
  
  
They're both stuffed to the gills, beached on J.C's livingroom floor with backs against the secondhand couch.   
  
  
J.C. eyes the new takeout-cartons-and-Menorah centerpiece of his thirdhand coffee table. "Ask, and you shall receive. Unless it's seconds.  We pretty much decimated dinner, which--thank you for," he says, waving at said remains, and smiling.  
  
  
"Ah, don't mention it.” J.C. is  _always_  smiling, always cool. Still, it's taken Connor weeks to ask the question that's been on his mind since lunch one. “But really, why was I tutoring you?"  
  
  
"Empty mind gather no credits, Connor-san," J.C. quips, but his expressive, puppy-eyes seem to contain a dozen other emotions. As if the heart of him is always open, always accessible, if Connor just has the courage to reach out. . . .  
  
  
He glances down at his hand. It's close enough to brush J.C.'s, but he fights temptation. Hell, it's a Christmas miracle that he hasn't  _already_  blurted out how he feels. "Don't gimme that 'alas, poor me, I would've failed Semiotics' garbage. You're at the top of the class."  
  
  
"Thanks to a certain TA."  
  
  
Connor rolls his eyes. "Really, Jace. What're you getting out of this?"  
  
  
“The pleasure of your company,” J.C. says simply. It should sound cheesy, but it doesn't. Not when the truth of it shines out his eyes like light, out of his skin like warmth. “You're one of my favorite people, Connor Reilly. And I've met a lot of people.”  
  
  
Connor blushes; looks away for a moment. Tells himself the time probably isn't right  _yet_ , though it sure  _feels_  like it is, nerves aside. “I'm . . . glad you feel that way. I'd really like to keep seeing you, even though Semiotics is over.”  
  
  
“I'd like that, too.” J.C. shoves Connor's shoulder with his own. The brief contact makes Connor feel brave, and tell himself a gutful of takeout is almost the same as a gutful of courage.  
  
  
“I was thinking that if you want we could maybe take our friendship to another level eventually if that's something you might want with me. Someday,” Connor lets out on one long, explosive, marinara-redolent breath.   
  
  
The reaction to this declaration--he's halfway to his Masters in Communications, thanks--is a silence that cannot possibly be good.  
  
  
When J.C. shoves his shoulder again, Connor somehow finds it in himself to look up, and his undignified yelp is muffled by the same startling kiss that causes it.   
  
  
The kiss ends after too few, brain-melting seconds, but only long enough for J.C. to ask: “Is this the level you meant?”  
  
  
“This is--wow, exactly--the level I meant,” Connor manages between distracting, pesto-flavored kisses. J.C.'s warm, calloused hand settles on his own, and this very real Christmas  _easily_  beats the false-memory ones--  
  
  
“Heeey. . . .”  
  
  
“What?”  
  
  
“You're  _J.C._ , and you were born on  _Christmas Day_.” J.C. blinks, as if to say  _and?_  “That's a weird coincidence.”  
  
  
“Yeah . . . coincidence.” J.C. smiles, kisses him tenderly. “Merry Christmas, Connor.”  
  



	3. Untitled Third Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor can't relax. J.C. has a stash. There's exposition. The nonexistent plot thickens, congeals, solidifies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I may be going to Hell, but at least I'll be with all the cool people.

"And blazing'll help me  _how_ , again?" Connor asks doubtfully. He's sitting cross-legged in front of J.C.'s coffee table, eying a graceful, bottle-green bong that's loaded for bear and ready to go. There're also reinforcements in the form of a small, psychedelic pipe, rolling papers, and an intent-to-distribute sized baggie of connoisseur-grade dank close to hand.  
  
  
"The bean-counter in here," says J.C., who's kneeling behind him--a warm, solid presence that smells vaguely of turpentine and pine, less vaguely of sunshine and hash--and brushes one finger lightly down Connor's temple. "Won't let the other guy, the arty one who wears berets and drinks absinthe  _be_  long enough to write a laundry list, let alone a thesis."  
  
  
" _None_  of my personalities wear berets, no matter how artsy they might be, Jace. And they certainly don't drink absinthe," Connor says and, one false memory of prom night aside, that's true. He is, in fact, straight-edge; not because he's morally opposed to drug use, but because he's never liked the loss of self-control it represents.  
  
  
When self-control was about the only thing he had  _left_  to lose, that might not've been so bad, but now that he's got J.C. . . .  
  
  
God only knows what Connor would let slip under the influence. Sure, J.C. is accepting, and ridiculously non-judgmental, but Connor's not willing to test that with even a hint of his for-real memories.  
  
  
The same memories that, even now, keep him up more nights than they don't. Even assuming he could come totally clean, and J.C. would not only believe him, but forgive him-- _accept_  him . . . well, he doesn't want the Quor'toth rattling around in his own head. The idea that J.C. might lose even an hour of sleep over Connor's past is completely intolerable.  
  
  
"I don't do drugs," he says adamantly, apologetically. If there was anyone he'd do them with, it'd be J.C.. Which is exactly the reason why he never will.  
  
  
"Look, I don't do drugs either. I just get low occasionally," J.C. says, without any apparent irony, his fingers digging into Connor's shoulders in a way that should hurt, but instead feels . . . heavenly.  
  
  
"Occasionally? You make Tommy Chong look like Nancy Reagan." He groans as his tense muscles release one by one, like detuned guitar strings. His arms--which he hadn't even realized he'd crossed over his chest--unfold, drop to his lap. He hangs his head forward, and J.C. presses wet, open-mouthed kisses on the nape of his neck.  
  
  
"You need," he whispers, his breath cool on the sensitized spots left by his lips. Connor shivers. Places his sweaty hands on his knees and hunches forward a little, all the better to conceal one multitude of a sin. He can easily think of a bunch of better ways the evening could be spent, and without the use of J.C.'s massive stash. "To  _relax_ , wiseass, before you burst a blood vessel. If you've got a better suggestion on how to do that, let's hear it."  
  
  
Connor almost stifles the impulse--then figures he hasn't gotten a better segue in the six weeks they've been dating, and throws caution to the wind. "What about sex?"  
  
  
J.C.'s fingers go from brisk and efficient, to light and lingering. Slide into Connor's hair, before tugging it a little, till Connor's leaning back against him. "Hmm . . . what  _about_  sex?"  
  
  
Realizing that if he clenches his kneecaps any harder, they'll shatter, Connor releases them. Places his hands safely on the table, careful not to clench them on the edge. J.C. really likes this coffee table. "You're teasing me," he accuses, breathing in and out deeply . . . calming breaths. J.C. chuckles.  
  
  
"Only a little," he admits, sliding his hands down to Connor's shoulders, squeezing them before hugging them. He busses Connor's cheek very softly, and Connor . . . closes his eyes and just basks. Even the currently mountainous levels of sexual frustration feel . . . good.  _Everything_ feels good when he's around J.C..  
  
  
"Can I ask . . . am I the first guy you've ever dated?" The question's hesitant, quiet. Not as if he doesn't want to ask, but as if he's not sure Connor wants to tell.  
  
  
"No . . . well, okay, if you don't count the--yeah," he finally admits in a quick mumble, his face burning. But J.C.'s arms are still around him--even tighter than before. "I mean, I've, you know, _messed around_  with a few random guys, but never dated any. You're the only guy I've ever wanted to . . . wake up next to."  
  
  
Which is a pretty  _Beaches_  thing to say to someone you've only known for six months, but no less true. And even though he knows J.C. wouldn't think less of him for saying such a thing, he still waits with held breath for a verdict.  
  
  
"Wow, that's--" J.C. laughs a little--sadly.  But Connor's heart doesn't even have time to sink before he goes on.  "That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me," he says, kissing the back of Connor's head, and hugging him just a bit tighter.  "For someone who's never had a boyfriend, you're a natural, Connor.  Prime boyfriend material, yourself."  
  
  
"Compared to who?" Connor snorts, giddy with relief, and still blushing furiously.  
  
  
"Ah.” J.C. sits backand resumes the impromptu massage, his thumbs pressing firmly into Connor's nape. And it's a measure of his infatuation, he supposes, that every touch, no matter how fleeting, gets him hard. Makes him desperate for all the sex they're not having. “Remind me to tell you about the ex-boyfriend from Hell, sometime that's never.”  
  
  
"So . . .  _you've_  been with a guy before.  Had a boyfriend." This is jarring news to Connor, who's never stopped to consider that J.C. might've actually had  _relationships_  with other men--can't quite manage the idea now, whether through jealousy or simple lack of imagination.  
  
  
Neither of them have been exactly brimming with info about their past--as a man with a past that's not exactly brim-worthy, Connor is quick to note that quirk in others--and a month and a half of dating hasn't changed that for either of them, it would seem.  
  
  
"Contrary to popular belief, I'm  _not_  a virgin, Connor. There was a time, when I was young--younger than you are, now--that I wasn't anything like chaste. Or monogamous. I was running scared from certain . . . filial obligations, and hurtling toward them all the faster for my troubles. . . ." for a long moments silence reigns, but for the rough  _whist-whish_  of calloused hands across cheap poly-cotton blend. "Then I ran in the opposite direction. Rabbinical school, you could call it."  
  
  
"Whoa, really?" Connor tilts his head back, till he's looking into J.C.'s big, puppy eyes. They're still a little red--according to J.C., he spends a goodly portion of his days, rain or shine, getting stoned whilst shingling other people's roofs or siding their houses--but not nearly as spacey as they'd been a little while ago. His face is square; wide-planed and friendly. Weathered, in a way that places his age somewhere between thirty-five and fifty, except when he grins.  
  
  
When he grins, he looks younger than Connor feels most days. Too young to been a Rabbi, to have changed careers, to have the regrets Connor sometimes sees in his eyes.  
  
  
But he squints, and tries to imagine this man--his  _boyfriend_ \--as  _Rabbi Jordan Cassel_  with the peyot, and the yarmulke . . . but again, he can't quite picture it. If only because the yarmulke wouldn't fit over J.C.'s crazy, Einstein-esque, salt-and-pepper Jewfro. Still. . . . "My boyfriend's a Rabbi?"  
  
  
J.C. leans down and kisses him. The kind of slow, thorough kiss that says  _I'm in no hurry to stop kissing you,_  and says it with gusto. Almost ad infinitum. "Your boyfriend's a very lapsed, former sorta-Rabbi. It's been years-- _years_  since I even said  _Shema Yisrael_." He steals another kiss, quick and teasing, then pushes Connor's head forward again. Resumes the massage thoughtfully. "I mostly used to travel a lot, and talk with people. Try to help them live their lives a little bit better, if they wanted."  
  
  
A light-bulb goes on in Connor's kiss-and-massage addled brain. "Like a motivational speaker?"  
  
  
That earns him a startled bark of a laugh. "Yeah, me and Matt Foley. We shared a van, down by the river. It was Bohemian."  
  
  
So. Another thing Connor can't imagine: why would anyone give up the life of a Rabbi, respected and learned, to be a roofer/aluminum sider in a college town the size of a postage stamp. And once he's thought it, the question slips out before he realizes how loaded it might be. "So what made you give all that up?"  
  
  
"Enter the ex-boyfriend from Hell," J.C. says--jokingly, but there's an edge in his voice. Though that edge (impatience? Anger? Embarrassment?) doesn't seem to be directed at Connor, the massage becomes rather punishing. "I would've had to give it all up eventually, anyway--que sera sera. But my ex did something . . . phenomenally stupid that got the ball rolling way before I was ready. It was a nightmare. My first serious relationship not only failed epically, but had a hand in destroying my life as I knew it.”  
  
  
J.C.'s hands slow. Stop. Slide down Connor's back and around his waist, where they lock together, and he hugs Connor close again.  
  
  
Used, as he is, to protecting himself, the fact that J.C. can make him feel so strangely safe is something Connor can't explain, and can't imagine living without.  
  
  
“Even in the beginning, before all the crazy, it was . . . dysfunctional,” J.C. says, as if he'd never thought to apply that word to himself, or his ex. As if he's never even said it before. “He and I were together for a lot of wrong reasons. We should probably never have happened-- _would_ never have happened if I'd listened to, oh, common sense, instead of my pride. My  _dick_."  
  
  
"Your heart," Connor says softly, thinking, for the first time in a long time, about Cordelia. The thing he'd  _thought_  was Cordelia, and the monster-godling they'd ushered into the world. That he'd been ready to die defending them both, and all under no sway stronger than the twisted, lonely workings of his own broken heart. . . .  
  
  
"Whichever," J.C. sighs, resting his chin on Connor's shoulder. "Long story short: the ex just made the end come a little before schedule--made it hurt that much more when it did. But I was doomed from jump street. Fate.”  
  
  
Remembering the Powers That Be, and the Senior Partners--how it feels to be nothing but a pawn in a cosmic game between Somethings larger than he can properly conceive of, with objectives that run deeper and stranger than his own rudimentary understandings of right, wrong, and power--Connor shivers, covers J.C.'s hands with his own and leans his head to the side and against J.C.'s. "I'm sorry," he says, and means with every fiber of his being.  
  
  
"Don't be. It was long, long ago, and far away. Ancient history." The just-right tone of even-keeled dismissiveness is flawless. But Connor gets the feeling this particular set of memories will never be long enough ago, or far enough away. Not by half.  
  
  
J.C. sits next to Connor, one arm still around his waist, and leans his head on Connor's shoulder again. He's wound tighter than a drum, and it doesn't take a natural--prime boyfriend material--to figure out that here's where Connor gets to be stoic, supportive guy. To put his arms around J.C. and let him sort himself out in his own time.  
  
  
So he does that. Buries his face in hair that always smells like pot, and sagey, organic shampoo. Holds on, and holds on, and holds on until J.C. relaxes in his arms. Is hugging him back, instead of just holding on, too.  
  
  
“Mood? Effectively killed,”J.C. notes several minutes later, in several small puffs of air on Connor's collarbone. Then a big gust of it as he laughs wryly. “Any horrible, life-shattering exes you feel like unburdening yourself about?”  
  
  
“Um . . . emphatically  _no_.”  
  
  
J.C. snorts again, and leans out of the embrace--but just a little. To look into Connor's eyes, and smile the bemused, fond smile that turns Connor's insides to churning, quivering mush. “Well, now  _I'm_  wound up, too.”  
  
  
“Oh--right.” Connor reaches for the rolling papers and the baggie of kind--he may not smoke but, according to J.C., he rolls like a pro--and J.C. catches his hand. Shakes his head  _no_ , still smiling.  
  
  
“Just so you know,” he warns, standing up and pulling Connor with him. Against him. Sways them both to music only he can hear while studying Connor's Adam's apple. “I'm not really a morning person, and the only edible thing in my fridge is four varieties of frozen pizza, any of which I can nuke to two consistencies: partially-thawed, or smoking brickette."  
  
  
J.C.'s eyes meet his again, almost shyly-- _oh,_  Connor realizes, and  _pizza for breakfast_  here . . . _because I'll have spent the night_ \--and he's rendered speechless. Knows his face is pink, his ears are red, and he probably looks like some village's missing idiot. He tries to think of something suave to say, or at least something that'll adequately, but not gushingly, convey his anticipation and joy over . . . this, them,  _everything_.  
  
  
While he's searching about for his command of English, J.C. looks away and licks his lips nervously. “Ah . . . that is if, um, you're still interested in hanging around through breakfast?”  
  
  
Finally, Connor shakes his head. He's never been suave or poised a day in his life--either of his lives. There's really no point to starting  _now_. He pulls J.C. against him, and kisses him, tasting green tea, the fake-fruit tang of Now-And-Laters, and of course pot. This scent and taste and _feeling_ , like every nerve ending in his body is coming fully to life, are all the high Connor wants, and he kisses J.C. till they have to separate or pass out.  
  
  
“I  _really_  like frozen pizza,” he manages between gulps of air, in a husky voice that unsurprisingly cracks like fine china. He's got stubble-burn on his face and throat, and J.C.'s wobbling on tiptoe. And grinning. And glowing. And leading Connor to the bedroom.  
  
  



End file.
